Thursday, 5 December 2013

Kris Kringle

As part of our quilting guild, we go out once a year for our Christmas dinner. Every year we have to provide a gift for someone – anyone, it’s pot luck who you receive and hopefully you receive a nice gift back.

This year’s theme was a Christmas Cracker with a value up to $15.

I actually did something quite radical really. The dinner is in another week. Mine has been finished for a month. I actually GOT SOMETHING DONE IN TIME! **

I decided to make a mug rug, and a small needle/scissor keep.

It was much easier than I envisaged. I think I’ve been doing massive quilts for so long I forgot the pleasure of doing the little things.

First of all, I made the mug rug. I appliqued one side with a sweet cup of tea, and pieced a six inch block.

The block is actually square but the dodgy photography makes it skew-wiff.

I stitched the two together after appliqueing the cup and saucer

Then I quilted it a little, whacked a binding on it, and bob’s your uncle. From start to finish it took me about probably two hours. I adore the colours, don’t you? I was going to do the whole Christmassy fabric thing but we only have those fabrics out for such a long time, I decided to give that a miss.

And the end result looks very nice, yes?

After the success of that little venture, I made a small scissor/needle-keep.

That was easy peasy also. I pieced a whole stack of 1.5” squares together in the same fabric line that I made the mug rug out of. I made them about the size I thought would work, and then quilted it all together using a nice backing fabric and a remnant of wadding.

I trimmed it all back to size and then bound it much as you would any little quilt.

I included a pocket that ran along the bottom of it, simply stitched in place. Then a layer of wadding as my needlekeeper, and it was done!

Folded in half it measures about five inches x four inches.

Once I had made those little lovelies, I needed to fit them into some sort of Christmas cracker. I didn’t have a clue how to do this, and then I had a flash of brilliance.

The inside of a Pringles packet was the perfect size for my cracker.

I collected my supplies and had a go. A little pink ribbon and a very sweet pink teatowel as the outer casing was all I needed.

It couldn’t have been easier. I just put my needlekeep and mug rug inside the Pringles packet, lay it in the middle of the teatowel and just rolled it up. All I needed to do was tie the ends with a matching ribbon.

And it is done! A lovely, not rushed, Christmas gift for one of my quilting friends.

I really hope she likes it.

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

**longtime readers will recognise this is not a normal behavioural pattern for me.